Amy Howe, “How the Tariffs Could Be Refunded if the Court Sides Against Trump,” SCOTUSBlog (Dec. 18, 2025):

It has been slightly over six weeks since the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the challenge to President Donald Trump’s power to impose sweeping tariffs in a series of executive orders earlier this year. During the lengthy debate over those tariffs on Nov. 5, the justices appeared doubtful that the president has such authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the 1977 law on which he relied.

That skepticism prompted Justice Amy Coney Barrett to look ahead at the possible repercussions of a ruling for the challengers. Specifically, she asked Neal Katyal, who represented a group of small businesses at the November hearing, to “tell me how the reimbursement process would work. Would it be a complete mess? … It seems to me like it could be a mess.”

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Barrett’s exchange with Katyal raises a number of questions about what would happen if the court strikes down the tariffs. First and foremost is whether importers that have already paid the tariffs—totaling more than $200 billion so far this year, the Trump administration announced on Monday—would be entitled to refunds. And if they are, how might that refund process work?

There are no clear answers, but history and several of the Supreme Court’s past decisions may provide some guidance.